Chapter 5
VIVIENNE
I snap my laptop shut, push away from the desk, and rub my eyes hard.
The lashes I may or may not be missing from the tug of my fingers? I couldn't care less about them.
If what I saw is true, my world is officially crumbling, and a few bald spots are a price I’m willing to pay for momentary relief.
After a few long seconds, I pry my eyes open, the cubicles of the graduate offices blurry before coming back into focus.
Gray walls. Endless wooden rows of desks arranged in facing pairs.
The bright fluorescent lights that easily make you forget the time of day.
Everything is crystal clear—just as I initially thought.
In theory, this should make me happy. My vision is perfect. The optometrist can officially quit calling me about her overpriced checkups. But deep down, I wanted to be proven wrong, because now, there’s no refuting the words in Dr. Anderson’s email.
The resources I needed to keep busting my ass in this lab and finish my PhD are gone.
Nope, I try to convince myself otherwise. My ability to read properly must have magically vanished overnight. But when I skim over the email again, I’m quickly proven wrong.
Good morning Vivienne,
I hope this email finds you well.
I am writing to inform you of a recent development that impacts the research projects of all students in the Anderson lab.
A few days ago, I was notified that we’d lost the grant funding for the majority of our research activities.
In light of this news, major cutbacks will be necessary.
The next scheduled lab meeting will be dedicated to discussing the implications of this for purchasing reagents, solvents, and other materials needed.
In the meantime, I encourage you to continue your research with the same dedication and enthusiasm you have consistently demonstrated. I’ll be around to visit the lab late in the afternoon to answer any questions, but if you don’t catch me, feel free to email or knock on my office door.
Best regards,
Patrick Anderson
I bury my face in my hands, nose prickling as tears press hot against my lashes.
Too much is happening at once—too many stressors and anxieties to think straight. But one thing is clear—I can safely kiss my plans of finishing my current project by the end of the year goodbye.
Forget about the challenges associated with research itself. If there’s no money, you’re not getting anywhere. Reagents are expensive. Publishing in journals costs thousands. And don’t even get me started on conferences.
“We’re so fucked.”
The words are taken right out of my mouth.
I turn at the voice of our postdoc Arjun, watching him enter the office alongside Nora.
“Tell me about it.” She lets out a weighty breath. “While I’d like to say we’ll be fine, I can already feel the effects. Dr. Anderson cut our dry ice order by over half this week. I wasn’t even able to finish rotovapping the fractions to my column before we ran out.”
Arjun stops in his tracks, eyes wide, and the panic plain on his face as he turns to look at his assigned undergrad. “Say you swear. This isn’t funny.”
“That isn’t even the worst part!” she continues, hands thrown in the air in exasperation. “When I asked if we could order more of the DOTA-NHS ester, he told me we couldn’t afford it, and I’d either have to make it myself or find an alternative…But I can’t realistically do either of those things!”
Nora is right on that regard.
A single gram of that compound costs around a thousand dollars.
And if you’re running a reaction on a marginally larger scale or going at it with repeated attempts to get one to work, you run out of such a small quantity quickly.
Synthesizing it was also difficult, as selective activation of DOTA is tricky.
And the worst part is, I needed that reagent for the next step in my reaction scheme.
Fuck. My. Life.
“You okay over there, Vivienne?”
I freeze, my head slowly turning back when my presence in this office is made known.
Sometimes I wish I could blend into the background, camouflage like a chameleon, so no one notices me. This is definitely one of those times. I’m spiraling, and the last thing I want is anyone talking to me—especially him.
“Yup! All good over here!” I spike some extra enthusiasm in my voice in the hopes of being let off the hook. But this is Arjun we’re talking about. There’s no such thing where he’s concerned.
“You sure about that? Last time I checked, people don’t swear their life away over a blank screen.”
My head snaps back to my laptop to find the screen indeed black.
I exhale deeply, shoulders slumping as I spin in my chair to face them. “What the heck are we supposed to do now? I used to be at peace with being a struggling grad student because my PI had money, but now we’re broke on both accounts!”
Nora’s eyes soften with understanding. “It’s okay, Vivienne. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
She always answers positively, but the bittersweet smile on her face tells a different story—she’s panicking too.
“I mean, Nora and I are nearing the completion of our project, so I’m sure we’ll be fine. But you, Vivienne? I will say, it’s quite unfortunate,” Arjun chimes in, concerned with his fingernails.
I blink away the shock clouding my vision when I shouldn’t be. He’s been dishing out backhanded insults since the start of my PhD. And to this day, I’m still not sure why.
Arjun trained me when I first started here at the lab.
And while I was nothing but kind to him, he only ever gave me curt answers and dirty looks.
I figured he found me a nuisance—lingering during experiments and asking too many questions as he wrapped up his grad work.
But seeing him as a postdoc now, quickly befriending everyone but me, I’ve come to realize it was never in my head.
Nora’s only been here for a handful of months, working on a subdivision of his work for her undergraduate thesis, yet they’ve quickly become two peas in a pod.
The same applies to all the other students in the lab.
One second, he’s laughing and cracking jokes, and the next, his face goes blank at the sight of me.
“Vivienne’s a smart one. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” Nora forces a hopeful smile.
Arjun completely brushes off the comment. “Have you heard about the Nate Archer spark controversy?” He shifts the topic of conversation, resuming his walk to his desk on the other end of the office.
Nora gasps in approval, following him. “Yes! I never really knew of him before, but I’m so invested.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve always been a big fan…but wow, this made me realize you never know people’s true colors. Especially when they’re in the public eye.”
“The girl in the photos kinda looks like Vivienne, doesn’t she?”
Soon, their voices blur into the background, and a deep void fills me. It’s for the best that I can’t hear the rest. God knows I would tune in to see if Arjun ends up shit talking me.
Now alone in these trenches, there’s only one thing that can save me—a cup of Phil’s coffee and a hug from the man himself.
Preferably a long one, as well.
———
The line to Brews&Bookmarks quite literally wraps around the building, crowding the already narrow sidewalks and making it significantly harder not to bump into a nearby pedestrian.
The quaint book café tucked in the heart of the city is always busy—don’t get me wrong—but never to this extent. This was the kind of slammed that screamed a celebrity is here, and we’re scrambling to catch a glimpse of them. As a mom-and-pop shop, that didn’t happen very often.
Angry stares follow me as I cut through the line and dart into the coffee shop, along with a string of incoherent slurs.
“Hey, Ava!” I wave at the barista as I slip behind the counter to pour myself a cup of black coffee.
While Phil, the owner of the coffee shop, and Margaret, his lovely wife, have made it infinitely clear that I could help myself to anything they had, I’ve never taken advantage of their kindness…until now. They seem busy enough. There’s no need to add another customer to their plate.
“Hey, Vivienne!” The brunette returns the gesture with a soft smile. “Two milks and one sugar?” she confirms, grabbing the packets and tossing them in my direction.
A shiver runs up my spine at the thought of those two very things and the man I now associate them with.
After some deep reflection on the sudden way my life went to shit, I’ve concluded that he’s at the root of the cause. He and his stupid, sugary, milky coffee. So for the foreseeable future, “That won’t be necessary.”
Confusion etches itself onto her face, but she’s got no time to question my switch-up in coffee preference as I shuffle toward the back kitchen.
Metal counters line the periphery of the small room, a large one sitting right in the middle.
Bakery racks expose dozens of trays filled with delicate, golden pastries.
Their sweet aromas fill the air, and I inhale the scent deeply, a calmness washing over me before I stop short when two pairs of eyes lock onto mine.
The first set belongs to the man who took me in like his granddaughter—warm, brown, and swirling with golden honey.
The second belongs to the man I prayed never to see again—green like emeralds and never-ending like a forest. It was easy to get lost in them, but good lord, have I come to resent them.
I blink once. Twice. Three times. Hoping this is all one fever dream, but to no avail—they’re both still standing there.
“Oh, Vivienne! It’s been so long.” Phil rushes over, crushing me in one of his signature bear hugs.
My hand, still gripping the coffee cup, darts out from within his hold as he squeezes tightly. In an ideal world, I’d set my drink down on the counter and hug back with equal enthusiasm, but I can’t bring myself to enjoy the moment when he’s here.
The older man pulls back with a wide smile, ruffling the top of my hair. “You never told me you had a boyfriend.”
I snort at the remark.